BREAKING: Lindsay Clancy Strangled Three Children and One Massachusetts Juror Refused to Let Her Walk

Three babies are dead and the woman who killed them is sitting in a wheelchair in a psychiatric facility instead of a courtroom prison dock.

Eleven jurors leaned toward letting her go free. One man would not sign off.

Trump says the price still has to be paid.

Judge Declares Mistrial After Lone Juror Rejects Insanity Verdict

Lindsay Clancy strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan with exercise bands in their Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. She does not deny doing it.

After sending her husband Patrick out for stool softener and takeout, she killed all three of her children, then jumped out a second-story window. She survived. They did not.

After seven weeks of trial and seven days of deliberations, eleven jurors were ready to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. One juror would not go along with it, and the case ended in a mistrial instead.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington blamed the deadlock entirely on that lone holdout, telling reporters the other eleven jurors had been cheated out of the verdict they wanted. "I won the case," he told reporters outside the courthouse.

Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said his office had not yet decided whether to seek a retrial. Judge William Sullivan said he wants the case tried again as soon as possible, with a status hearing set for September 29.

Trump did not mince words. "She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can't be worse," the president said at an Oval Office signing ceremony. He added that the price still has to be paid, one way or another – a psychiatric facility or a prison cell.

Rep. Nancy Mace put it plainly: "This case is not about the excuses for why she committed murder." For Mace and the Republicans who echoed her, the only question that matters is accountability for three children who never got the chance to grow up.

Sen. Mike Lee asked why a state would let a jury even entertain letting this happen, and said it was troubling that the one juror who held out might now need protection just for refusing to cave.

Inside the Postpartum Psychosis Defense That Convinced Eleven Jurors

The defense's theory was not complicated. Clancy's attorney argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a rare and severe mental condition – so severe that she heard a male voice commanding her to kill her children.

Defense forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick told jurors it was "almost as if she was a puppet," as though some outside force had taken control of her hands while she strangled her own children.

Prosecution forensic psychiatrist Dr. Gregory Saathoff told jurors that story didn't add up. Clancy had never once mentioned hearing voices to any doctor, nurse, or psychiatrist treating her before the killings – and her hallucination happened to end the instant she finished with her youngest child.

Prosecutors spent the trial arguing something simpler: Clancy chose the moment, chose to be alone with her children, and knew exactly what she was doing.

Eleven jurors didn't buy it.

Andrea Yates and the Insanity Defense Playbook Nearly Repeated in Court

Andrea Yates drowned all five of her children in a Houston bathtub in 2001. She was convicted in 2002.

An appeals court threw out that conviction after a prosecution expert testified about a Law and Order episode that never actually aired. At her 2006 retrial, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state mental hospital, where she remains today.

The same expert who helped free Yates – Dr. Phillip Resnick – sat in the witness chair for Clancy's defense.

That is not a coincidence. That is a strategy two decades in the making, and it convinced eleven of twelve jurors this time too.

Massachusetts law hands the defense a real advantage here. Once a defendant claims she lacked criminal responsibility, prosecutors carry the entire burden of disproving it beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense doesn't need to win the argument outright – it only needs one juror's doubt to survive.

This time, doubt cut the other way. One juror's certainty kept the case alive.

Why Trump Says Lindsay Clancy's Retrial Has to Deliver a Price

The defense is already angling for a fall retrial in front of a new jury. Reddington told reporters he liked his odds after an 11-1 split in his client's favor. The DA hasn't said whether he'll pursue that retrial.

Patrick Clancy, who has since remarried, released a statement through his attorney calling the prospect of reliving the case "extraordinarily painful."

Trump's instinct here is exactly right. Accountability means Clancy answers for what she did, whether that's behind bars or locked in a psychiatric ward. What Reddington is pushing for is something else entirely – a verdict that sends her to a facility with periodic hearings before a judge who could eventually let her out.

Cora was 5. Dawson was 3. Callan was 8 months old.

Rep. Mike Rulli of Ohio said the same juror deserves credit for doing something eleven others weren't willing to do. The country is now watching Massachusetts decide, a second time, whether killing three children counts as murder or a medical event.

The DA better retry this case. And the next jury better remember what eleven of the last one nearly forgot – Cora, Dawson, and Callan don't get a retrial.

Sources:

• Michael Ruiz, Adam Sabes, and Greg Wehner, "Lindsay Clancy mistrial declared after jury deadlocks in killings of her three children," Fox News, September 4, 2026.
• Washington Examiner Staff, "Republicans rip Lindsay Clancy mistrial as defense teases new fall retrial," Washington Examiner, September 4, 2026.
• CNN Staff, "Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case after jury deadlock," CNN, September 4, 2026.
• Asher Klein, "After mistrial, Patrick Clancy's lawyer calls prospect of new trial very painful," NBC Boston, September 4, 2026.
• Fox News (@FoxNews), "President Trump reacts to the Lindsay Clancy mistrial," X, September 4, 2026.
• Nolo Staff, "The Lindsay Clancy Case: Understanding the Postpartum Psychosis Defense," Nolo, September 2026.